I played for the Tigers

It’s true I played for the Tigers. I played all positions in the outfield, 2B, SS, 1B, and 3B. When I played in the outfield, ie left field, if the ball was hit to right field I would run all the way to right field to back up my team mate. Yeah, I was fast. No a am not dreaming, I am talking about Little League. I was a big fan of the Detroit Tigers, never missed a game. Back then I had one of the first transistor radios and would walk around with the earphone in my ear. Everyone knew I was a big fan of the Tigers, so no one was surprised when I dawn around wearing my LL Tigers shirt. When I played for Pony league, I was hoping to, once again play for the Tigers. I was selected to play for the Dodgers. I played 2B and SS, occasionally I would pitch.

I had dreams of playing for the Detroit Tigers, but that dream got shattered when we moved. I said, I could sign up for another team at our new home. No one played baseball in the UP. You ether played football, basketball or you played on the Babe Ruth league, softball. I had no interest in softball, in my opinion, that was for sissy’s. Of course, I was in high school back then.

The radio reception was poor so I couldn’t always listen to the Tiger games. I eventually lost all interest in baseball. I tried on several occasions to spark my interests back to baseball. I would watch the Bird pitch, and again with Cecil Fielder, but the spark was not to be. Not even in 1984 when Detroit won the World Series. Sparky was a great coach but I didn’t like him because he would not pull out a bad pitcher until it was too late. I even went to a few games at Tiger stadium still no interest to follow the Tigers or even catch a game on the tube.

But this year, there is a spark, not just a spark, an inferno. Jim Leyland not only got the Tigers out of their rut, he actually got me interested in the Tigers again.